This blog began in 2007, focusing on anthrax vaccine, and later expanded to other public health and political issues. The blog links to media reports, medical literature, official documents and other materials.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Switzerland's medical regulator recommended patients with seriousautoimmune diseases should not use an H1N1 flu vaccine fromNovartis, saying there were no studies assessing the innoculation in thatpopulation.

Swissmedic said on Wednesday it could not be ruled out that either or boththe adjuvant -- which can enhance the immune response -- and/or the antigen, or less active ingredient, could lead to an intensifying of autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis, are caused by an overlyactive immune system attacking its own body, targeting substances which arenormally present.

Novartis was not immediately available to comment.

Instead, Novartis was busy flogging its MF59 adjuvant in the US for BIRD FLU. The only problem is that enhanced immune responses are dangerous in people who have autoimmune diseases, or a genetic predisposition to them. And from another of today's Reuters articles:

A vaccine additive made by Novartis (NOVN.VX) and used in its European influenza shots can boost the body's immune response to a wide range of viruses, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

Tests in the laboratory suggested the so-called adjuvant, called MF59, helped the immune system counteract not only the H5N1 virus in the current experimental bird flu vaccine, but mutant viruses as well. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, suggests using vaccines with adjuvants may protect patients against even more types of flu viruses than they are being vaccinated against. Adjuvants are widely used in European flu vaccines as well as in Canada. But are not widely used in the United States -- even though the federal government has spent nearly $700 million buying them.

The reason? People might not trust them.

Other studies have shown adjuvants can stretch the supply of flu vaccine, becauseshots using them require much less of the actual vaccine antigen.

"Adjuvanted vaccines produce higher immune response than unadjuvanted vaccines particularly in the elderly and young children," Dr. Vas Narasimhan, president of Novartis Vaccines USA, told a U.S. Congressional hearing last November.

After swimming with dolphins at Key Largo, they checked me out at the edge of the pool

Visiting a Bhutanese Dzong, the regional seat of both government and religion (and a fort for good measure)

Why am I blogging?

Because life is meant to be lived! The left side of this blog has photos of some peak experiences. And the right side contains information about which I am passionate.

Too many peoples' lives are characterized by lack of authenticity, and fear of acknowledging and expressing their true nature. Employees cannot say what they think at work, and in the corporate system we must squish ourselves into square holes when we are round pegs. We thus lose touch with our souls, becoming cogs in a soulless, profit-driven machine.

The culture of political correctness has meant, in medicine, that we ignore how the foundations of our science are being undermined by commercialism. Clinical data generated or presented by the manufacturers of drugs, vaccines and devices cannot be trusted: there are hundreds of studies proving this. But this fraudulent information continues to be the only data informing the approval of vaccines, drugs and devices.

Unless scrupulous ethical conduct is demanded of physicians and biological scientists, our lack of meaningful standards will carry the medical-pharmaceutical system down the path of increasing irrelevance.

Medicine and its tools need to be affordable. The current medical-industrial milieu, characterized by contempt for science, countless ways for insiders to achieve wealth due to failure of good governance, and regulatory agency-to-industry revolving doors, has ushered in stratospheric pricing... further kicking us down that path to irrelevance.

Why is our new health care plan a giveaway to health industries instead of to health consumers? Why won't it cover all Americans? Why was the "public option" never an option for the Obama administration? Why did the promised Trump health plan evaporate the moment he was elected?

So many of our leaders carry a heavy burden of mendacity and avarice. If they instead got in touch with their own souls (perhaps by exposure to the natural world), or made their decisions by maximizing the amount of good that results, our leaders might find real meaning and value in their lives.

Until that happens, the only way to straighten out the current mess is to demand accountability and impose penalties on unethical/dishonest leaders. Both political parties enjoy bounteous hors d'oeuvres from Pharma's table, making it unlikely the existing political "process" will provide relief--as we've seen in the demoralizing healthcare reform drama.

Until then, I'll continue to "call it as I see it" in this blog -- working and living the way life should be, in rural Maine, far from the centers of power.

Ellen Byrne has created several designs encapsulating aspects of the FBI's ridiculous case against Bruce Ivins. They can be purchased on T-shirts and coffee mugs. All proceeds will be donated to the the Frederick County chapter of the American Red Cross, a favored charity of Dr. Bruce Ivins.